Sunday, April 29, 2012

[TERA] Trials of a Knight-Errant: Miniskirt Edition

I was rather bored this weekend, so I decided to have another shot at TERA. The thing about TERA is that I expect so little from it that the game is actually a great deal of fun. This time I chose to roll a character on the Role-Playing server, under the theory that the innuendo in general chat would at least be in proper English.

(As a complete aside, I rather wish there were Normal servers, but with the Roleplaying restrictions on names, chat, etc. A 'Polite' server ruleset, as it were. I have no interest in roleplaying, but I rather like being on a server with people who can write in full sentences, and no Arthasloldk in sight. But the roleplayers must get pretty annoyed that "their" server is overrun with people who don't roleplay at all.)

In any case, I rolled a female human Lancer, which is a lance-and-shield tank. Yeah, the first rule of TERA is not to question the logic behind anything, but just go with the flow. The lance telescopes somehow, automatically extending to full length when you enter combat. As expected, this leads to interesting commentary in general chat.

For some reason, TERA to me is symbolized by the following story. The female Lancer is very scantily-clad, which includes a miniskirt as part of her (theoretically heavy) metal armor. But as my female readers can probably attest, a miniskirt does not really go well with riding a horse. So what does any logical knight-errant do? That's right, she rides sidesaddle:

Coriel the Lancer, with mount. Note the telescoping lance on her back.

Somehow, this is just so perfectly TERA to me. Perfectly reasonable thinking, but from completely crazy starting points.

I'll talk more about tanking in a later post, because it's quite interesting, and quite possibly the perfect blend of tanking mechanics, of what Ghostcrawler calls "active mitigation".

Honestly, if you can get past the skimpy clothing, and the race that looks like little girls (who now wear shorts instead of tiny dresses), TERA is quite a fun and engrossing game, with some really intriguing mechanics and subsystems.

What really cracks me up is that the sidesaddle is backwards. One always mounts a horse from the "near" or left side of the animal, so the legs should be on that side.

It seems like every single time I see that in a game, you see people getting on the horse from the right. Sure you don't have to conform to an obviously arbitrary real world tradition, but why go the opposite way all the time?

Historically, sidesaddles were used for several related reasons. Women wore long skirts, and riding astride in long skirts is uncomfortable. It was also considered immodest, because the skirt usually rides up, revealing a lot of leg. The other option, wearing trousers, was also considered immodest.

As well, it's also possible for a young girl to break her hymen when riding astride. This means she loses the "proof" of her virginity, in a time where having a virgin bride, especially among the upper classes, was important. But women still needed to ride horses, so the sidesaddle was eventually developed.